Posted
by
timothy
on Friday August 21, 2009 @07:57AM
from the check-my-belly dept.

eldavojohn writes that though gravitational waves are "predicted to exist by Einstein's Theory of General Relativity, the initial tests run by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory Scientific Collaboration (LIGO) failed to find anything. It doesn't disprove their existence although it does rule out a subset of string theory. From the article, 'For example, some models predict the existence of cosmic strings, which are loops in space-time that may have formed in the early universe and gotten stretched to large scales along with the expansion of the universe. These objects are thought to produce bursts of gravitational waves as they oscillate. Since no large-amplitude gravitational waves were found, cosmic strings, if they exist at all, must be smaller than some models predict.' The scientists working in Washington and Louisiana (in tandem to rule out flukes) will now move on to Advanced LIGO which will analyze a volume of space 1,000 times larger. If they don't find any gravitational waves in that experiment, the results will be more than unsettling to many theorists."

I like to see string theory crumbling as much as the next man, but err.. that :

dark matter can be explained by the evolution of advanced technological civilizations based on *known* physics (through molecular nanotechnology and extreme engineering)

If given the choice between these two propositions, I think I'll stick with string theory and its 26+ space dimensions. But kudos to you for pioneering a new approach to astrophysics that consists in claiming "space aliens did it".

I proposed the "really tiny strings" theory long ago that said that a really tiny string is attached between the gravitational bodies like the earth and the moon. Sure, some laughed and countered with their silly "spooling paradox" argument, but sometimes it takes decades to appreciate a true genius.

Yep. OK, enough with ID vs evolution, let's move on to the other battlefront of the science vs faith war. Climate change!

Global warming, schmobal schmwarming! Temperatures have gone done for the last 10 years (facts here [wikipedia.org]), so everything is just fine, it's just evil liberals who hate our benevolent oil companies because they're in the pocket of Big Ethanol. Discuss.

The time has come for all who worship the false spaghetti god to tremble before the power of the Divine Lasagna Entity! Behold his many layers of wisdom and power! Watch as he smites those who worship the lesser pastas with his molten cheese!

I worked at LIGO Hanford a few years back before going back to grad school. Since it is essentially a scaled up prototype, new things were always being fiddled with and the device was very temperamental. If we could have blown the dust out of the cartage, we would have. How easy/hard it was to gain and hold lock (when the laser is resonating properly) varied on a daily or sometimes hourly basis with no obvious way to tell what was wrong this time.

As a joke, I put together an emergency kit for the control room. It consisted of:1) one(1) cardboard box with "emergency locking kit" written on it. Also suitable for use as an altar.2) one(1) rubber chicken for use as a sacrifice for any suitable god.3) one(1) butter knife stolen from the lunch room.

To my knowledge, it was never officially used. But the rubber chicken did end up with some suspicious marks on its neck and the butter knife did end up with red marks along the edge. It was claimed to be accidental damage and a slip with one of the whiteboard markers, but I suspect something else was at play.